By Andy Cook is the Chief Executive of the Centre for Social Justice.
The electorate wants more from this election. In the shadow of lockdown, two major wars, stagnant growth, social division, and collapsing public services, we need leadership that combines a belief in our nation with game-changing ideas of how to change it for the better.
Only this will end lure of the populists, with their “curse on all your houses” politics, who want us to waste our vote in protest, rather than on solutions.
I am an optimist. We can do better. If we focus on the long-term root causes of our troubles, rather than quick-fix sticking plasters, then we have the talent and resources to rebuild our future.
Turbo-charging the nation’s future prosperity depends on creating a new deal for our children. They are, by definition, the key to Britain’s long-term national regeneration; in many cases, they have paid the highest price over the past decade.
So when it comes to our kids, what should be in the Conservative manifesto?
We cannot start early enough. We need to properly support family life, but there are few areas where politics is more lost than in childcare.
Every poll tells us that parents want to spend more time with their children in the first years of life – unsurprising, given all the evidence says this is in the long-term interests of those children.
Yet we have created an economic model that demands the total opposite, a political arms race to provide ever more institutional childcare at younger and younger ages.
Rather than putting every nine-month-old in 30 hours of childcare a week, we should totally rethink our early-years offer. That means recalibrating labyrinthine childcare pots, child benefits, and marriage allowances to enable parents to spend money where they see fit in those first few years of life – including by being more present at home, if that’s their choice.
But family life means more than just childcare. It means publicly standing up for the family and particularly the institution of marriage; recognizing the importance of fathers as well as mothers; building affordable homes and safer communities in which people can be proud of and put down roots; and structuring our tax system around households rather than individuals.
The foundational aspirations of family must be at the heart of a new deal for children; finishing the job of rolling out Family Hubs to all remaining 317 English local authorities that do not yet have one would be a good place to start.
Children need to go to school. Not just for a good education, but for all the social benefits too. There have been encouraging noises about growing technical education and clamping down on rip-off degrees.
But there are much deeper problems than that. Since the pandemic, absence from school has increased by almost two-thirds; 37 per cent of disadvantaged pupils are now recorded as ‘persistently absent’, missing at least a day of school per fortnight, and record numbers of so-called “ghost children” are absent most of the time.
The long-term scarring of this is significant. There’s a real threat that the social contract between parents and schools is breaking.
CSJ polling, published in January this year, found that the previous sense of education as a pathway out of poverty has collapsed as nearly three in ten parents believe lockdown showed its not essential for children to attend school every day. Until this changes, government will be fighting an uphill battle it is highly unlikely to win.
Small tweaks to the curriculum will not turn the dial. We need an urgent national parental participation strategy so that schools and families are supported to work together on a shared mission of getting kids back into school.
Next, ministers should add a full hour to every school day, to bring in a range of extracurricular activities provided by external clubs and community groups.
Central to that project must be sport. Almost a third of kids fail their maths GCSE first time round and only a fifth of those do any better second time round. Of course maths is important. STEM careers are great. But putting so many eggs in that basket ignores the huge range of talent out there. We should nurture every child and give them all a reason to turn up.
Sport is a huge motivator for many kids, but has slipped down the priority list for too many schools. It addresses a host of the big problems young people face today from mental health to obesity and screen time. It increases employment chances, improves health, improves absence, and even academic grades. It’s popular with parents too.
In the community, we need new thinking to revitalise youth provision. Funding for youth work has fallen by 60 per cent since 2011. According to the YMCA, 4,500 youth work jobs have been cut and 750 youth centres closed.
In 2019 Sajid Javid, then chancellor, announced a £500m fund for youth services. John Roberts, a philanthropist, offered to match-fund it and create an endowment to fund youth services in perpetuity. Assuming that endowment had performed in line with the FTSE 100, it would have already paid out almost £200 million, be worth 16 per cent more today, and able to continue paying out nearly £50 million a year for capital projects.
Instead, the money was reduced and given to DCMS. It gave out £228 million in the past two years, before returning £60 million to the Treasury. If we are going to get serious about giving young people opportunity we have to be more willing to think big and bolder.
Beyond school, we are facing a bow-wave of young people who are missing out on work and opportunity, with a national challenge of economic inactivity and a fast-rising cohort of 16–25-year-olds who are out of work and not required to seek it.
Work is central to human dignity. It builds purpose, relationships, and belonging. It is the best route out of poverty. Again, we cannot start early enough in building confidence and aspiration.
The manifesto should contain plans to pioneer a new qualification, modelled on the Mbacc in Manchester, which facilitates a technical skills pathway from aged 14, linking the curriculum to skills needed in the local economy. Funding for apprenticeships for 16- to 18-year-olds should be ring-fenced.
Every secondary pupil should have the right to a minimum of two weeks of work experience before the age of 18, and employers should coördinate their degree apprenticeship intakes in order to give those on apprenticeships the same social and life skills experience as those who go to university.
Commissioning should be shifted from a distant Whitehall department to the grassroots level, where local needs and support – particularly from grassroots charities and community organisations – are understood and valued.
Successfully bringing up kids relies on the harmonious interaction of three areas: family, school, and community. All are currently suffering. We have the power and resources to improve this, but it requires a long term commitment and a profound change in government’s approach to the family.
The post Andy Cook: How Sunak can draw up a transformational manifesto for children, families, and young people appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Andy Cook
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